Playlist, Week of 2017-08-13

A short list, but action-packed. I put the 10-hour compilation of all the 1972 "Dark Star" improvs from the Grateful Dead on my phone. It was a travel week, so it was great to have it going while in the hotel room. I understand there's a Version 2 out there now--I need to snag that. Guess I'll finish getting through Version 1 first--this will be the second time through. It's great stuff.

Playlist 2017-08-14:

*Beach Boys: Today/Summer Days and Summer Nights (two-fer)
*Beach Boys: 50 Big Ones (disc 1)
*Beatles: With the Beatles (2009 mono remaster)
*Beatles: Hard Day's Night (2009 mono remaster)
*Beatles: Help! (2009 mono remaster)
*Grateful Dead: Dark Star 1972 version 1 (in progress, 01:10:00-05:07:00)

Reading List, Week of 2017-08-13

Reading List 2017-08-14:

*Le Carré, John. The Little Drummer Girl (started)
*Sorrentino, Gilbert. Lunar Follies (reread/started)
*MacDonald, Ross. The Chill (reread/started/finished)
*Le Carré, John. The Secret Pilgrim (finished)
*Jackson, Holbrook. Anatomy of Bibliomania (in progress)
*King, Frank. Walt and Skeezix, Vol. 4: 1927-1928 (reread/in progress)
*Silliman, Ron. The Alphabet (in progress)
*Sun Ra. Collected Works Vol. 1: Immeasurable Equation (in progress)

Playlist, Week of 2017-08-06

Just getting around to Neu!... trancy space-rock, really nice... The more I listen, the more I realize I don't really know that much, and certainly don't have the vocabulary to express what I think about the music I listen to... unless you catch me with a beer... Maybe next week...

Playlist 2017-08-07:

*Anthony Braxton: Willisau (Quartet) 1991 (disc 4)
*Anthony Braxton: 3 Compositions (EEMHM) 2011 (disc 1)
*Nels Cline: Coward
*Rodger Coleman and Sam Byrd: 2015-05-14 Nashville (wav) (selections)
*Alexander Hawkins: Unit[e]
*Decoy & Joe McPhee: Oto
*Henry Kaiser & Wadada Leo Smith: Yo Miles!
*Maurice McIntyre: Humility in the Light of the Creator
*Thelonious Monk: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (disc 2)
*New Ting Ting Loft: 2017-07-17 "Back Link, Don't Leak" (wav)
*No Material: No Material (disc 1)
*Bud Powell: Tempus Fugue-It (disc 4)
*Sun Ra and His Solar Arkestra: The Magic City
*Sun Ra and His Arkestra: The Sun Myth (African Chant) (streaming)
*Sun Ra: The Great Lost Sun Ra Albums: Cymbals & Crystal Spears (disc 2)
*Sun Ra: Disco 3000: The Complete Milan Concert 1978 (Art Yard) "Disco 3000"
*George Clinton: George Clinton and His Gangsters of Love
*Bob Dylan: The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Volume 12 (disc 1)
*Guided By Voices: August by Cake
*Gong: Camembert Electrique
*Gong: Flying Teapot (Radio Gnome Invisible Part 1)
*Gong: You
*Grateful Dead: Dark Star 1972 (started, 00:00:00-01:10:00)
*Jayhawks: Tomorrow the Green Grass
*Neu!: Neu!
*Neu!: Neu! 2
*Prince: For You

Reading List, Week of 2017-08-06

For more on Sorrentino's first novel, see Daniel Green's chapter from his forthcoming book on Sorrentino's work.

Reading List 2017-08-07:

*Le Carré, John. The Secret Pilgrim (started)
*Sun Ra. Collected Works Vol. 1: Immeasurable Equation (started)
*Sorrentino, Gilbert. The Sky Changes (reread/started/finished)
*Clinton, George, with Ben Greenman. Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard on You? (finished)
*Youngquist, Paul. A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism (finished)
*Jackson, Holbrook. Anatomy of Bibliomania (in progress)
*King, Frank. Walt and Skeezix, Vol. 4: 1927-1928 (reread/in progress)
*Silliman, Ron. The Alphabet (in progress)

A Pure Solar World

This excellent meditation and study of various aspects of Sun Ra's work contains the best explication of Ra's poetry I've ever read, explaining his concepts of equations and clarifying how the poetry and the music reinforce each other in equational conceptual loops. Highly recommended! For more, here are two good reviews.

The Magic City

The Magic City is:

quite simply the most moving, evocative, and sustained group improvisation to come out of the sixties (Paul Youngquist, A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism, 2016, p. 186)

I could't agree more! I note with excitement that Cosmic Myth Records is now offering this (on vinyl and on CD) in a remastered stereo version. Has anyone heard this?

Also, there's tons of Ra on Bandcamp all of a sudden...many digital releases plus many of the bonus tracks that were previously only available on iTunes. You can see my overview of some of those bonus tracks here, plus more here. Exciting!

Playlist, Week of 2017-07-30

The performance of the Barry Guy New Orchestra, with Elliott Sharp, in Berlin in 2009 is just brilliant... Sharp's guitar and electronics are featured in the first piece, "Danaus," while the second piece, "Radio Rondo," focuses largely on the excellent piano work of Agustí Fernandez... Barry Guy's compositions for large ensemble continue to astound me... Sketches from Bamboo is a remarkable set of compositions for large ensemble from Roscoe Mitchell, from back in 1979... personnel includes Marilyn Crispell on piano, Anthony Braxton and Douglas Ewart on reeds, and Leo Smith on trumpet... I love the AACM-related large ensembles like this... in the early- to mid-80s, there were several creative orchestra ensembles sharing similar lineups from Braxton, Mitchell, and Smith... they are remarkably rich and nuanced... I am reading good things about Roscoe Mitchell's newest album on ECM... it's great to know he's still kicking it!... I have been enjoying investigating the various versions of John Zorn's Cobra out there... I went to an afternoon rehearsal of the game that Zorn conducted (coached?) at Harvard back in the, what? late '80s?... it wasn't as successful as any of the recordings... the Harvard students weren't loose enough... easy to understand; Zorn was an imposing figure, not bent on making anyone comfortable... Weasel Walter's Firestorm: good old-fashioned hardcore free jazz... always good to hear Marshall Allen blowing hard in this context... Sometimes things just up and grab you... smack you up the head in unexpected ways that make you think gaddam we are living in great musical times... case in point: the second disc of the Anthony Braxton São Paulo quartet set... this struck me last year, and it hit me again last night... somewhere around 45 minutes in, Braxton starts vocalizing through the horn in a way I haven't heard him do before, then Ingrid Laubrock joins in, embellishing the vocalizations, then all of a sudden Mary Halvorson comes in with a totally different sound universe of chords, as if from a different band, and wow it's just awesome, in the best sense of that word... this is just deep, beautiful music... what a great musical universe we live in.

Playlist 2017-07-31:

*Art Ensemble of Chicago: 1997-06-29 Vignola, Italy (CDR)
*Han Bennink/Misha Mengelberg: Instant Composers Pool 010
*Anthony Braxton: Willisau (Quartet) 1991 (discs 1, 2, 3)
*Anthony Braxton: Anthony Braxton Quartet [Sao Paulo 2014] (disc 2)
*Kris Davis Trio: Waiting for You to Grow
*Kris Davis: Capricorn Climber
*Kris Davis/Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey: 2011-10-22 Cormòns, Italy (CDR)
*Kris Davis Infrasound: Save Your Breath
*Barry Guy New Orchestra & Elliott Sharp: 2009-11-06 Berlin (CDR)
*Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey: 2011-07-25 NYC (CDR)
*Ingrid Laubrock: Serpentines
*Roscoe Mitchell Creative Orchestra: Sketches from Bamboo
*New Ting Ting Loft: 2017-07-17 "Back Link, Don't Leak" (wav)
*Bud Powell: Tempus Fugue-It (disc 3)
*Ben Redwine/Daniel Barbiero/Jonathan Matis: Microeconomics
*Marc Ribot: Shoe String Symphonettes
*Henry Threadgill & Make a Move: Everybody's Mouth's a Book
*Weasel Walter Quartet and Double Trio: Firestorm
*John Zorn: Cobra (disc 1)
*John Zorn: John Zorn's Cobra: Tokyo Operations '94
*Cornelius: Mellow Waves
*Brian Eno: Reflection
*Esquivel: More of Other Worlds, Other Sounds
*Gong: Angel's Egg
*Grateful Dead: Live/Dead "Dark Star"
*Henry Kaiser: Everything Forever
*King Crimson: Islands (40th Anniversary Ed.) (disc 1)
*Raymond Scott: Manhattan Research Inc. (disc 1)
*Bruce Springsteen: The Ties That Bind: The River Collection (disc 1)
*Tasavallan Presidentti: Lambert Land
*Wig Drop: Wig Drop 2
*Robert Wyatt: Rarities, Vol. 1 (boot CDR)